Rishon LeZion is a city in Israel, located along the central Israeli coastal plain eight kilometres south of Tel Aviv. It is part of the Gush Dan metropolitan area. Founded in 1882 by Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire who were part of the First Aliyah, it was the first Zionist settlement founded in Palestine by the New Yishuv and the second Jewish farm settlement established in Ottoman Syria in the 19th century, after Petah Tikva.